China’s carmakers are building new EVs in record time, leaving global rivals scrambling to catch up to their lightning-fast development cycle
https://www.carscoops.com/author/bradcarscoops-com/
by Brad Anderson
10 minutes ago
- Chinese automakers can develop new models in as little as 22 months.
- GM president admits the company must learn from China’s faster pace.
- Western automakers are racing to shorten their development times.
The auto industry has entered a new phase, one where old hierarchies no longer guarantee dominance. Long gone are the times when legacy automakers could dismiss emerging new rivals from China.
Read: GM Quietly Plots A Family Of Low-Cost EVs After New Bolt
Now, a company like General Motors knows it needs to move faster and think sharper to keep pace with China’s electric vehicle powerhouses. According to its president, that means building new models at a speed that would once have seemed impossible.
On average, a new model from a Chinese EV brand has a typical development cycle of between 22 and 28 months, far quicker than the 32–48-month average for western automakers. GM president Mark Reuss knows the speed of its new competitors is something they need to match.
How Fast Is Fast Enough?
“I would say we can learn a lot from the speed,” he told InsideEVs during a recent podcast. “I don’t think that copying each other and trying to price each other out of the market is necessarily a great thing.”
Reuss noted that Chinese brands often use the same base of suppliers and can quickly adopt innovations, helping to speed up development times. However, he acknowledged that it can be difficult for these carmakers to make money unless they also sell batteries.
“They benchmark the heck out of each other, and then they will copy it and put it into production, so it’s a very rapid cycle because of that,” he said. “There are a lot of companies that come and go, and they come and go often. Unless you’re selling batteries, it’s a pretty tough financial deal to make money over there.”
GM is far from the only car manufacturer that needs to speed up development times. Last month, Audi said it was going “China speed” with the development of the next-generation TT, aiming to launch it just 30 months after the project was approved
Less than two weeks later, BMW raised the stakes, claiming that even Chinese firms can’t match its momentum as it develops the Neue Klasse vehicles. The Bavarian company has pledged to roll out 40 new and updated models within the next two years, signaling again that the global race for speed in electric vehicle development is very much underway
